In 2004, I co-founded a company (with Josh Petersen and Buster Benson) that conceived of and built the social networking site 43 Things. The purpose of the site was to ask the question, “What do you want to do with your life?” With this prompt, users created a list of up to 43 life goals (43 was…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Emphasis,” which you can listen to below or over here.

I was waiting in an exam room at the emergency veterinary clinic when I found out my cousin had succumbed to the vodka he would not, could…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Invisible Baby,” which you can listen to below or over here.

Our last trip to Los Angeles included a jaunt to the suburbs to stay the night with old friends at their new home. They had just…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Snake Poem,” which you can listen to below or over here.

The first poem I ever encountered was likely a classic English nursery rhyme — one of many that my mother recited aloud while bouncing me…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Stringlyjack,” which you can listen to below or over here.

In 2007 I read an article in The New Yorker titled “An Error in the Code,” by Richard Preston, about a rare inherited disease called…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Meltdown,” which you can listen to below or over here.

Queen Ka’ahumanu was born in a cave on Maui, circa 1768. Her name means “the feathered mantle,” but as she came to power she proved…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Ogallala,” which you can listen to below or over here.

As with many children of the 1970s, my first awareness of “the environment” as a thing that humans had royally screwed up was sparked by…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Song for Brangien,” which you can listen to below or over here.

This week we welcome a special guest essayist: Daniel Spils!

This essay is the backstory for our song “Halibut Cove,” which you can listen to below or over here.

The Homer Spit has a spindly reach, stretching thinly into Alaska’s Kachemak Bay and growing slightly bulbous at the tip, like ET’s…

This essay is the backstory for our song “Super Blood Moon,” which you can listen to below or over here.

Most of what I know about the solar system came from my Grandpa Archie, a sweet and self-educated man who took great joy in…